My First Panic Attack!

Well, you might be worried from the post, but I hope the fact that there even is a post at all should tell you that there’s a happy ending at the end of the story.

So far, my travels have been fairly painless.  My spanish has been adequate, I haven’t missed a bus, and I even was able to change a few flights at the last minute (in Spanish!) for not much money at all.

This all changed this weekend.

I was going to visit my friend from home, Alex (who you’ll see in a lot of pictures all of a sudden), who’s been studying abroad here in Chile for six months.  He’s staying Vin~a del Mar, a town on the coast about two hours away from Santiago (Chile is so skinny, it’s amazing!)  We decided to meet in Olmue a tiny village about half-way in between, and located next to La Campana, a National Park that I wanted to visit for my studies.  So I get to the bus station for a 4 o clock bus (we were spending the night Friday and hiking Saturday).  I get on, no problem, but they overbooked the bus and make me wait until th 6:30 bus.

Okay, no problem.  I’ve had delays before, and it’s fine.  I hang around the station, w

Chily in Chile

God, what an awful pun.  I am truly sorry for that.

But entirely true!  It’s winter here in Santiago, and I celebrated by playing in the snow.  I arrived early, early, early yesterday morning, and am staying with the amazing Estaban family.  They are taking wonderful care of me, and I am having a great time.

Today, because I didn’t have any interviews scheduled, I went up into the mountains with Miguel, my host, who had the day off from work.  He wanted to get out of the smog that surrounds Santiago, and the mountain air is (in his words) good for the soul.

So off we went, Miguel, Jose (Miguel’s son), and myself, with a short stop at the university Miguel studied at to get a panaramic view of Santiago.  It’s kind of startling.  It is a massive, and very sprawling city.  And the smog!  It’s worse in winter (right now), but still, it’s unbelievable.  Miguel tells me that on extremely bad days, the use of cars is regulated and that asthma and other health problems are a lot worse in Santiago.  Yes, the geography of being in a valley surrounded by mountains doesn’t help, but not a good example for the rest of the country.

Anyway, so we were heading to the Cajon del Maipo, the Canyon of the River Maipo, which is home to the El Morado National Park.  It’s about an hour and a half from Santiago, and it’s a completely different world!  I told Miguel, I don’t understand how the Canyon is not packed with people everyday, because it is beautiful beyond belief.  The drive up the canyon, which starts with the “Camino del Perros” (Walk of the Dog, is almost unparalleled.  Called that because of the dozens of stray dogs that live along the road, the route winded through ancient forests, over the rapids on the River Maipo, and through quaint villages as far removed from Santiago as my apartment in Evanston.  It was great.

After an hour or two, we made it up to the base of the Park (which sounds a mountain, and is snow covered during the winter (in Santiago, it never snows).   We then spent the next two and a half hours trying to build a dam over one of the many branches of the Maipo.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, that’s got to be impossible – rivers are big things, that three guys can’t stop.  But it was small, no more than 6 feet across, and less than 6 inches deep.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, that’s got to be really easy – a few rocks, so sand, and it’s done.  But, it’s actually next to impossible.  Still, it’s very therapuetic to move rocks, and build and rebuild the dam.  After 2.5 hours, we had barely slowed the flow, but it was still a great way to spend the afternoon.  The top of the Canyon is actually at the base of a still active volcano, which is a great backdrop for anything.  Except the mine that sits right outside the Park.  That’s kind of ugly, and ruins the scenery.

But, regardless after a completely futile (yet completely worthwhile) afternoon, we came back down the mountain (not before changing a tire that a massive rock absolutely destroyed!  No fun, but inevitable on the dirt roads) and had dinner at the Sanctuary of the River – we ate tons of food and drank great Chilean wine in a completely empty log lodge.  Great dinner.  Miguel is a fellow photography enthusiast, and besides practicing my dismal Spanish skills, we talked a lot about our favorite photos, our cameras, etc. etc.

We finished the night driving back listening to electronic techno remixes of Motown hits – very popular in Chile, and a specialty of Miguel, who likes to DJ on the side occasionally.  The sidetable in the living room is actualy his turntables.  Very cool guy.  And a great ride home.  Nothing beats driving at night listening to music.

Anyway, I’ve got a meeting with the English newspaper tomorrow and am visiting the National Park Head Office in the morning, and have to leave.  It should be interesting to compare Peru and Chile – the latter being much more developed than the former.  So many people say that developed countries are better when it comes to environmental issues, but judging from the smog and the lack of visitation to a Park that is almost a stone’s throw from the capital (which holds 1/3 of the country’s people).  I’m heading out to the coast to visit a friend from home this weekend, where I will hopefully get some fresh fish.  I will just leave you with a fun fact I learned in an interview in Peru – if all of the fisheries on the coast of Peru were running at capacity, after three days, there would be no fish left in the entire ocean. anywhere.  That is scary. But have a good night!

An Amazing Thing Just Happened

So I was sitting in my hostel getting caught up on all of the work that I´ve missed over the pask week, and a man wanders up and starts asking me questions about my laptop.  I brought a Dell netbook with me on the trip and it has been a godsend.  So tiny, so sleek, and great fun.  Anyway, we´re chatting about the computer for a while, but then he starts to tell me the history of my hostel – how it was the Incans palace for their women, then the Spanish turned it into a convent, and how it´s still owned by the convent down the street as part of a big, block long complex of buildings.  Very interesting stuff.

More interesting is that the man turns out to be the former (and running again soon) mayor of Machu Picchu Pueblo, the small town at the base of the ruins of the same name.  We started talking about my project, and he was really interested!  We had a great chat about what´s going on in and around Machu Picchu Sanctuary.  Then, to make it even better, he invited me to lunch! And not just any lunch, but a delicious local plate of trucha y papas (trout, with the eyes still in it. and local potatoes) with himself (his name is Oscar) and the aforementioned nuns.  He even gave me a glass of a wonderful Chilean wine to wash it down.

I´m leaving tomorrow for Chile after an astoundingly long three weeks.  It seems like forever, and there is so much more I could be doing here.  The people I´ve met over the past week have all been so kind and open, it´s amazing.  Walking across the Plaza de Armas at sunset this evening for the last time, looking up at the last rays of the day dancing on the Cusco flag in front of the Cathedral, I got extremely nostalgic for a second!  This place has been almost like a home for these three weeks.  But, on the other hand, I can´t wait to get moving again.  Still have lots to see.

Cape Farewell

Wow – there’s just too much to talk about.  CREES was a big draw to changing my flights to visit Manu.  But, I’d be lying if I said it was the only one.  The other big draw was the Cape Farewell Project, which was stopping at the MLC at the same time as me.  For those of you who don’t know (and don’t’ feel bad, I just recently found them), Cape Farewell is a British enterprise which is trying to create cultural shift in our attitudes towards Climate Change.  The idea is that people know about climate change, but that this awareness has not led to any significant changes.  Cape Farewell tries to remedy this by bringing artists together with scientists, explaining the science behind climate change research and hoping that the artists’ exposure to the beautiful places and the science trying to save them, will trickle down into the cultural conscious of society.  Their website is great, and I strongly recommend you check it out (http://www.capefarewell.com/home.html).  This is the first trip that they have done outside of the Artic, and so I had to good fortune to meet some amazing people.  I had dinner with Yann Mantel, the author of one of my favorite books Life of Pi.  I did yoga with some of the scientists connected with the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford, one of the leading institutions in dealing with Climate change.  Over a few beers, I discussed National Parks with Charlie Kronick, the chief policy operator of Greenpeace and Yadvinder Malhi, the head of Oxford’s ECI’s Ecosystems Group.  It was a truly amazing opportunity, not only to meet them and discuss their work and their views, but also my own.  Everyone was so excited to hear about my project (for good reason), and they all thought it one of the best opportunities they had heard of (I agree completely!).  The days flew by and made me even happier I had gone to the MLC.  The last night, a few of the artists shared some of the work they had been thinking about while on the trip, and it was awesome.  Swapping good books with one of my favorite authors was icing on the cake (and Luz, the cook at the MLC, makes a delicious cake).

There are two things that stick out at me when I think about my project and Cape Farewell.  For one, science, while necessary and very interesting sometimes, can also be terrible.  One day, the Oxford group was setting up a jungle plot to measure carbon sequestration in the jungle.  The artists all tagged along to learn about the science.  It was not fun.  Crawling through bamboo, getting bites, blisters, and dirt everywhere, they came back a little disenchanted with the idea of hard science.  And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing – the jungle looks amazing from the river, or from the comfort of the MLC, but when you are slogging through it, it’s a completely different story.  Some people (Edward Abbey, for one) think that they only way people should be allowed in a National Park or in a protected area is by doing this slogging, on your hands and knees – really experiencing it.  But I’m not so sure.  I don’t think that’s for everybody, and I think national Parks would be doing themselves and the public a disservice by making this slogging the only way to experience the jungle.  Rather than making most people rise to the occasion and overcome their fear of bugs (or whatever), it’d just turn people away from visiting in the first place.  And that’s the worst thing a Park can do, I think.

The other thing that Cape Farewell taught me was about awareness raising.  To me, one of the most important functions of a National Park is awareness raising.  Perhaps it stems from my own experience with them, but I think National Parks can be a transformative agent in an individual’s life – giving them a new found appreciation for the Natural world.  But, as a few of the Cape Farewell people pointed out to me, (especially Charlie, whose Greenpeace is in the business of awareness raising) awareness does not always translate into action.  Just because I’ve been to the Grand Canyon and seen how beautiful it is, I still will probably go home and watch too much TV, eat beef, and do those other things.  When there is such a disconnect between our every day lives and the nature that supports them (do you know where your shirt came from? Or the electricity you’re using?  I certainly don’t), awareness becomes very ephemeral.  Because National Parks seem to be able to make us aware of the grandiose, the stunning, the landscape, but they don’t seem to be able to bridge that gap between what we do at home and the effects it has on nature.  If they can, though, I think they could be a very powerful teaching tool.  It just remains to be seen how to actually do that.  And with limited funding, bad education, and a lack of experience (who wants to work for the government and the Parks when the private sector is so much more fulfilling and economically smart?), it’s going to be even harder for Parks to do that.  But they have to try.   One of the most disappointing things I’ve found here in Peru is the attitude that the Parks are not the solution to the problems.  People honestly believe that it is impossible for the Parks themselves to affect any meaningful change.  And, while that may be true, to say that Parks are already dead seems too defeatist for me.  There has to be something that can be done, if only we can figure out what it is – it just won’t be easy.  Anyway, regardless of how optimistic I am feeling at the moment, I just want to say how awesome of a week I had!  Meeting such amazing people makes me so thankful that I’ve received this grant.  Pictures to come soon.

CREES Foundation & the Manu Learning Center

The CREES Foundation (with its partner CREES Expeditions) owns and operates the Manu Learning Center.  The Center has three distinct, but interconnected parts.  One – a volunteer program.  People from all over the world come to help local communities, to help conduct scientific research, and to learn about the jungle.  Plus, it’s a lot of fun.  Exploring the jungle, swimming in creeks, and relaxation are just some of the perks of volunteering at the MLC.  They are extremely engaging, diverse, and smart people who go home with (hopefully) a new awareness of the natural world, a strengthened for the plights of their fellow humans, and a new appreciation for the Amazon.  Two – scientific researchers.  The MLC hosts researchers from all over the world (and Peru) to conduct research on the flora and fauna of the Amazon.  In the week I was there, there were ongoing projects concerning tourism impacts on the blue-headed macaw (a rare bird species), the behavior of ants, and success of reforestation in the Amazon.  Three – giving back to the local community.  All of funds brought in by CREES, along with the help of the volunteers goes directly to supporting local communities.  Whether it’s funding education, job training, buying computers, or numerous other projects, CREES does all it can to engage the local communities around it.

Sounds kind of a miniature National Park, doesn’t it?  My interest in the MLC was to see how effective private organizations can be in conservation, indigenous rights, and tourism (in this case, volunteerism).  Although the MLC caters to a very small group of people, it is extremely successful in fulfilling almost every aspect of its mission.  Not to mention the people themselves!  You have never met more friendly people.  The staff, many of whom are from the area, are more than willing to teach you the local language (Quechuan), show you how to recaulk a boat (it’s quite hard), or play a game of soccer.

The MLC itself is a gorgeous compound, built four years ago today (Happy Birthday MLC!), right along the river.  The only electricity comes from a solar panel and generator and is only run for an hour a day.  There isn’t a pane of glass in the entire compound – everything is open to the air.  You sleep in a pod – a bungalow of sorts with beds, each with its own mosquito net (effective against the cockroaches too, which are a fact of life in the jungle.  Once the sun goes down, these guys come out).  The food, cooked by an amazingly nice Cusquenan named Luz, is delicious, local, and plentiful.  Beet salads, yucca roots, fried bananas.  One of the highlights of the week was definitely looking forward to the sumptuous feasts that Luz would prepare three times a day (yes, every meal was great).  The rest of the compound is replete with a bio-garden (one of the various projects exported to the local communities), a gazebo over a waterfall (great for yoga in the mornings), and a great trail system.  All in all, it is one of the most relaxing places I’ve been, and everyone you talk to seems to have forgotten what day it is.  A good sign, I think.  I can’t think everyone there enough for the wonderful week I had – it’s been the highlight of my trip so far, without a doubt.

And I haven’t even talked about the jungle!  Given that it surrounds the MLC, and pervades every aspect of life there, that’s amazing.  I will keep its description short – it looks exactly like Jurassic Park.  I was just waiting for a brontosaurus to rear its head up.  And it’s full of awesome little quirks – leaf-eating ants, the world’s smallest farmers (they cut leaves to feed a fungus that lives in their nest and provides them with food), peckaries, ground birds with an affinity for mud, and monkeys!  I got to see some squirrel and brown capachin monkeys (pardon the misspellings).  Very cool, very agile.  Listening to the cacophony at night just shows how little you actually get to see while you’re there.  The only bad thing about the jungle is the pervading dampness that seeps into everything.  This wouldn’t be a problem unless you’re traveling a lot right afterwards, so hopefully I can dry everything out before my flights tomorrow.  I’m going to Chile!  It should be lots of fun – I am meeting up with Alex, a friend from Columbus, and have kindly been invited to stay with one of my fellow Knights of Columbus during my time in Santiago.

So that’s where I’ve been!  I’ve been in the jungle, finally getting to experience the Parks I’m actually studying.  It was definitely worth the change of plans, and I can’t thank CREES enough for helping me with everything.

There & Back Again

I’m sorry, but I’ve been in a Lord of the Rings mood since I re-read The Hobbit last week.  But my journey was very much an adventure like Bilbo Baggins and includes crazy boat rides, killer ants, and some monkeys.  A little context.  I had the greatest fortune to be invited to the Manu Learning Center, which is run by the CREES Foundation.  More on that later.  The Learning Center (MLC from now on) is located just outside of Manu National Park, in what we call the Buffer Zone.  This is a semi-protected area of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, which allows mild development for tourism and sustainable growth.  From Cusco, my home city in Peru, it is roughly 90 km as the crow flies to get to the MLC.

Unfortunately, I am not a crow.  The alternative route required an eight hour epic journey that started at 3300 meters above sea level and ends at about 400.  It’s entirely on a dirt/mud road, and takes a long, long time.  But it’s also a stunningly beautiful drive.  It winds through the Sacred Valley, cuts through some very small, rustic villages, and crosses the mountains at Tres Cruzes, the threshold between the Andeans and the cloud forest (the start of the rainforest).  I can’t tell you how breathtaking it was because I’ve already ran out of adjectives.  From Tres Cruzes, it’s another few hours winding down into the jungle until you reach Atalaya, the port from which you must take a boat downriver to the MLC.  Needless to say, it’s a long trip, but worth every second.  Even the headache that you will (I guarantee it) get from the roads isn’t enough to keep you excited to see what’s around the next bend.

And once you arrive, it’s still not easy to get around.  The forest at that level is tropical and thick.  Armed only with a machete, it takes hours to clear just a small section of a trail.  Throw in the mud bogs, the wasp swarms, and you have got a place that is extremely uninviting to all but the most hardy.

Now, I promise I’m not telling you how hard it was so that you’ll have great respect for me (although it’s appreciated).  I’m telling you how hard it is to get to the jungle, and how hard it is to get around in the jungle, because they have been probably the biggest factor in making Manu the place it is today.  Manu is the most biodiverse protected area on the planet (have I said that before?).  A lot of this comes from the geography of the Park, which incorporates numerous, overlapping ecosystems as you descend from the Andean highlands to the jungle floor.  But a very significant reason why the biodiversity remains is the difficulty for humans to get there.  The Incas tried to conquer it.  They failed.  The Spanish tried.  They failed.  It wasn’t until the end of the 1800s that an outsider managed to go up the Manu River (a rubber baron) and even since, there still is very little access for outsiders.  Development is slowly starting to trickle in, but I think there is a case for keeping it very limited.  It seems just stupid to attribute so much of Manu’s richness and health to limited access and then to put forward plans to build infrastructure, to increase tourism, and to bring more people to the area.  Even when they don’t live inside of the Park, all of these activities add to the pressure on the already fragile ecosystem inside the Park itself, and there’s no telling at what point something will change.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very much for sustainable development, but there has to be a limit, and especially when so much of the development that does happen is not sustainable, it’s hard to justify allowing it in the first place.  It seems good to promise to be sustainable, but if it hasn’t in the past, it seems silly to assume it will be in the future.

But, anyway, there’s lost more to come, but one last thought.  If the journey there wasn’t enough excitement (in a 4×4 truck -very safe), the way back – in a station wagon at night) was insane.

So Many Things to Say!

Ah! I am so sorry for the long gap between posts!  I promise there’s a very good reason for my absence, which I will explain in good time.  Before I do, though, I’ve realized that I have never actually formally introduced what I’m doing on this amazing trip.  Everyone knows it has to do with National Parks and local populations, but that’s really vague (partly on purpose.  I’m not 100% sure where my project is going to end up, but I have some general ideas).

In a nutshell, I am researching whether or not the success of National Parks requires the active participation of the local populations.  What do I mean by local populations?  Obviously, the groups of people that we often find living inside of the Park itself (typically indigenous groups), but it is more than that.  Local populations means the people who live just outside of the Park, and local populations means the tourism industry that works in the Park.  I’m convinced, and I am certainly not the first one to suggest this, that the most successful Parks will be the ones that have the most inclusive relationship with the people who live inside and nearby.  On the face of it, my project is purely a comparative study between different Parks in different countries – each with its own problems.  But, it’s also more than that.  I don’t think I will be able to gauge how effective National Parks are until I can come to some reasonable definition of what a National Park is supposed to do.  Ever since Yellowstone, the first Park in the world, there hasn’t been a clear definition of a Park’s role – tourism, public good, education, conservation, preserving cultural history – or an amalgam of some combination of those.  So, I am hoping to shed a little light on the fundamental nature of National Parks, and then look at how this shapes their goals, the relationships, and ultimately, their success.

Whew! If you have any questions, please shoot me an email.  I’d be more than happy to continue bombarding you with my thoughts!  One of the great benefits of traveling alone is how much time you have to think.  I’m going to write a few more posts about this past week, so I don’t give you arthritis from scrolling down (I already ramble enough), but here’s what you have to look forward to:

-There and Back Again (Manu National Park is not easy to get to!)
-CREES & the Manu Learning Center
-Cape Farewell
-Hunt Oil & Manu National Park
-The Road Ahead